♂Pierre Olivo

Pierre Olivo (died before 1764) was a settler of French Louisiana who lived at the Arkansas Post^W and later at Pointe Coupée, heading a family whose children were born in three places spread along several hundred miles of the Mississippi valley: the Arkansas Post, the German Coast and Pointe Coupée.

The family

The earliest trace of the couple is their daughter Catherine, who was described at each of her marriages at Pointe Coupée, in 1744, 1747 and 1761, as a native of Arkansas, and in 1747 as of the diocese of Quebec; the family was therefore at the Arkansas Post when she was born. A son, André, was described at his marriage in 1764 as a native of des Allemands, the German Coast^W above New Orleans. By 1739 the family was at Pointe Coupée: a son Pierre was born there on 11 June 1739, a daughter Marie Françoise on 8 August 1741, and another son named Pierre was baptized on 2 February 1743; the records do not say whether the first Pierre had died. On 4 January 1742 Pierre Olivo stood as a witness at the marriage of Jean Balquet, a surgeon, and Marie Marguerite Homard at Pointe Coupée, the last record found of him acting in person; the baptism of a son on 2 February 1743 still names him as father.

The registers name at least seven children of Pierre Olivo and Magdelaine Cable. Besides Catherine, who married Pierre Joly in 1744, the surgeon Pierre Bahout in 1747 and, as his widow, the sergeant René Legue in 1761, their son George married Catherine Cheval, widow of Etienne Bosseron, in 1755; Marie Anne married Guillaume Guerin in 1758; and in 1764 André married Marie Françoise Prevot, a native of Fort St. Philippe in the Illinois country, and Pierre married Marie Anne Riché.

Death

No record of his death or burial has been found. The marriages of his sons Pierre and André in May and September 1764 both describe him as deceased. He had probably died many years earlier: by November 1745 a Marie Magdelaine Cable was the wife of Jacques Cure, a native of Mardié in the diocese of Orléans (a “Jacques Curc” witnessed Catherine Olivo’s marriage in 1747), and by 1753 Magdelaine Cable was the wife of Pierre Ducote, named in 1756 as “Pierre Ducote and his wife, Magdelaine Cable” when they stood as godparents to George Olivo’s son. Pierre Ducote was a witness at five Olivo weddings, between 1744 and 1764: Catherine’s in 1744 and again in 1761, George’s in 1755, Marie Anne’s in 1758 and André’s in 1764.

Notes

Origins

His parents are not known, and no record of his birth or of his marriage has been found. The Pointe Coupée registers, as published in abstract, give no birthplace for him or for his wife, Magdelaine Cable, and no other record read so far names his family. The registers spell the surname Olivo, Olivot and Oliveau, and treat them as one name.